A New Years' Slip-Up
by general zargon
Summary: Ichigo winds up in Magnolia in the holiday season. This isn't as bad as you might think. Rated T for some curse words. Happy New Years!


Ichigo groaned softly, squinting against the brightness of the decorations covering the buildings around him and wondering how the hell he'd even wound up in this 'Magnolia' place.

He'd just been playing around with his newly-discovered ability to create a Garganta*, sneaking from Hueco Mundo** back to the living world and gradually moving on to creating portals that led to specific locations, when _something_ had messed up. He honestly had no clue what - one minute he'd been running along his created pathway, the next he was tumbling through darkness as he slipped off the road he'd created. He'd tried to catch himself and create another path beneath him and then...nothing, that was the last thing he remembered.

Now, however, it seemed the entire town he'd landed in was in the holiday spirit and festivities were in full swing if the scattered bits of conversations he heard around him were any indication, not to mention the groups of people spontaneously singing carols (at least he thoughts they were carols, since he didn't exactly recognize some of the lyrics). All the bright lights and colorful clothes were starting to give him a headache, though at least compared to these people, he was the very picture of normality, even dressed as he was in his Soul Reaper uniform and with Zangetsu (the cleaver-like blade concealed by the bandage attached to the hilt) slung across his back.

He walked passed a guy sporting a green Mohawk and wearing more chains and buckles than should be legally allowed on one person and decided that, yep, he was actually one of the more normal-looking, despite his bright orange hair.

There was a bit of a chill in the air, but not enough of one that he actually felt cold, and even the happy and chattering crowds around him were only wearing scarves or at most a jacket to guard against the wind. The glowing Christmas lights along the edges of the houses and stores blinked cheerfully at him, shining colors from red to blue to green to yellow. All in all, a pretty cheerful place, and Ichigo couldn't really bring himself to keep a scowl on his face, even if he was pretty confused about all the strange glowing symbols, in a myriad of colors, that kept randomly appearing in mid-air and sometimes on the ground.

Ichigo tried to put the symbols out of his mind, reining in his confusion and curiosity about them and instead turning his attention to figuring out how the heck he was supposed to get back home. The air around the place he'd found himself in was practically thrumming with power, like spirit energy but not, and he was hesitant to try and open a Garganta in the middle of a town, just in case the strange power didn't mesh well with his own. The strangeness of it made him uneasy and all the more eager to get home, but his uncertainty over trying to open another Garganta made him hesitate over attempting to get home, and that in turn made him more than a little irritable.

So, while Ichigo didn't have a scowl on his face, he definitely wasn't grinning like a lunatic either.

Jolted out of his thoughts by rambunctious cheering, the substitute Soul Reaper blinked, looking around and finding himself in front of a building decked out in more lights than any other building he'd seen, with a bunch of them outlining some kind of sign/symbol above the door. Apparently while he'd been lost in thought, his feet had kept moving and seen to it that he would be lost in reality as well, he thought with a forlorn sigh.

He shuddered as a chill shot down his spine and then decided, what the hell, he might as well get out of the cold while he tried to think of a way to get home. And judging by the amount of people walking passed him and going into the building, it was open to the public. It was also loud, he thought with a grimace as he pushed open the door, pausing absentmindedly to let a woman enter ahead of him, but at least it was warm.

The inside was just as loud, if not louder, than it had been outside, along with just as colorful, but now he could focus on blocking out the excess noise as he made his way to the bar that he'd seen through the throng of bodies clustered around some kind of stage. Maybe the bar would have soda or tea or something, he thought hopefully as he ducked around two guys having a fist-fight, which was apparently normal as no one was paying them the slightest bit of attention.

Shoving his way up to the bar, he hesitated before flagging down the barmaid, since he'd just reached the realization that he had no idea what the people in this world used as currency, and it wasn't like he'd brought his wallet with him either way. Frowning slightly, he stepped back and let someone else have his place at the bar, sighing as he glanced towards the stage, seeing that people were starting to settle down and find seats. He also saw what looked a lot like a judges' panel alongside the stage...he blinked when, as he started listening to what was happening around him again, some guy went up to the microphone on the stage and announced:

"People of Magnolia! And people from nearby towns! And to those who came especially from the Underworld, don't forget to go back to your graves when this over! I now present to you the first ever Fairy Tail Miss New Year pageant, so let the contest begin!"

The entire room stood up and cheered, and Ichigo found himself grateful that he was standing near a wall and thus didn't have to worry overmuch about being knocked down. Then he registered what the announcer had said and had to stifle a chuckle, since he was technically dead at the moment and didn't really have a grave to go back to. Okay, yeah, his mood was a bit better after that, and it improved even more when a waitress came over to him and handed him a glass of some kind of soda. He glanced over at the woman who'd apparently paid for it as the waitress left (he actually recognized the woman as the one he had let in ahead of him) and sent a smile at her and nodded in thanks, because hey, his day was looking up.

When the first contestant came up onto the stage, Ichigo looked at the woman and promptly decided that he could probably stay a little while, at least until the end of the pageant and he found out who won...

* * *

_*For those who don't know a lot about Bleach, a Garganta is what Hollows' use to travel between their world and the world of the living._

_**The world of Hollows, the bad guys in Bleach. :)_

_Author's Note: I literally wrote this in one night, just so I could post this New Years' present for all of you, so I hope you enjoyed this one-shot! I was going to post another story, but I wasn't able to finish it in time, so here's a consolation prize. :P I leave it up to your imaginations who won the Miss New Years' pageant Fairy Tail put on. ;P This is my first attempt at this kind of crossover, so I hope I did alright! Please review and tell me what you think!_


End file.
